Loewy Online: Remembering Mitchum all the sudden’

Tom Loewy

Tuesday

Jan 31, 2012 at 12:01 AMJan 31, 2012 at 7:58 PM

What started with a general discussion about watching the State of the Union address has evolved into musings about one of Register-Mail columnist Tom Loewy’s favorite actors, online comment author L.A. Woman guessing at the source of a Robert Mitchum line and the strange connection between a 1951 film noir and the monster movie "Godzilla."

I closed my last blog with a line uttered by Robert Mitchum back in 1951.

“I’ll see ya all the sudden.”

I’ve co-opted it often, as my few friends will readily tell you. In fact, I’m a die-hard line stealer c the more obscure, the better. Frequent Register-Mail comment writer L.A. Woman thought she recognized the line, and wrote to ask me if Mitchum said it in the immortal film noir masterpiece “Out of the Past.” That was a good guess.

L.A. Woman said “Out of the Past” is one of her favorites from the noir period, which I contend runs from roughly 1941 to 1960.

If “Story of G.I. Joe” put Mitchum on the movie map upon its release in 1945, “Out of the Past” put him on the road to movie stardom. Released in 1947 — many claim that’s the penultimate year for film noir releases — “Out of the Past” showcased Mitchum’s sleepy-eyed, nonchalance and his ability to infuse characters with a toughness that didn’t have to be expressed in on-screen violence.

I think his best line in “Out of the Past” is when Mitchum tells a dissembling Jane Greer “Baby, I don’t care” before kissing her on the beach.

Women loved Mitchum. He was tall, dark and handsome and had that “thing” that made him stand out in a room filled with tall, dark and handsome men. Theresa Russell was in her early 20s when she made “The Last Tycoon” (released in 1976) with Mitchum, Robert DeNiro, Jack Nicholson and a host of former leading men. It was Mitchum who caught Russell’s eye.
He was 59 when the film was made.

“He was just a man,” I once heard Russell say. “He was old enough to be my father, but I wanted to be a notch on Robert Mitchum’s belt. Absolutely.”

L.A. Woman was wrong, however. “I’ll see ya all the sudden, Sammy” is the complete line and Mitchum said it in the 1951 film “His Kind of Woman,” an RKO film that also starred Jane Russell, Tim Holt, Vincent Price, Jim Backus and, inserted after principal photography was completed, Raymond Burr.

I can’t help but digress on the subject of Burr, who went on to TV stardom in “Perry Mason” and “Ironside.” He first came to prominence playing heavies. He was the wife-killing baddie opposite Jimmy Stewart in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rear Window.” Anyway, Burr’s scenes were inserted into “His Kind of Woman” because the crazy dude who ran RKO c the infamous Howard Hughes c was forever tinkering with films.

Burr also was inserted into an existing movie for the American release of the Japanese monster film “Gojira” c better known in film history as “Godzilla.”

I don’t know if any other actor has the distinction of being inserted into two films after they were completed, but let’s get back to Mitchum.

There is probably no actor in film history as underrated. Besides the classic “Out of the Past,” Mitchum appeared in one of my all-time favorite films, “The Night of the Hunter.” He starred as Max Caddy in the original “Cape Fear” and he was perfect in the vastly underseen “Angel Face.”

I know a lot of stories about Hughes and the troubled production of “Angel Face,” but the one I relay here is my favorite Mitchum tale of all time. In an early scene, Mitchum slaps co-star Jean Simmons in the face. During production, director Otto Preminger told Mitchum to slap Simmons a number of times. After about four or five takes, Simmons started crying.

Preminger called for another take, whereupon Mitchum casually strolled over to the director and clocked him with an open-handed blow that nearly knocked Preminger to the floor.

Then Mitchum calmly asked Preminger, “Is that what you want, Otto?” and walked off the set.

In my next installment, I’m going to talk Paterno, “The Wire” and regulation.

I’ll see ya all the sudden. Or out there in the Burg.

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